Newt Gingrich's team just came out with what I believe is its first sharp hit against Rick Santorum of the campaign, a video montage of the former Pennsylvania senator talking earmarks, endorsing Mitt Romney in the 2008 presidential race and taking "one for the team," as he memorably put it in the final GOP debate in Arizona last month.

If the lines of attack seem familiar, it's because Team Romney - the campaign Gingrich has said he wants to thwart - has been using them against Santorum for weeks.

It's Gingrich's last stand at wooing conservative Southern voters to his side ahead of the Alabama and Mississippi primaries next week, contests that his aide RC Hammond said yesterday he needs to fare well in to justify moving on.

And while there have been some indications of a campaign in the last stages in Newtworld, it doesn't seem that the end will come before Tuesday. The only question is how much damage Santorum incurs in the process.

BACKGROUND: NEWT Lost FLA- but still leading nationally: Rick loses in NH, SC, FLA, and soon, nev- . Did he bow out with honor?

No, just the opposite. Instead, of competing with Newt in the arena of ideas, Rick went romney- he back-stabbed his mentor and fellow conservative. From FR:

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Rick Santorums presidential campaign announced a new television ad that will begin airing Tuesday in Colorado and Nevada.

The ad attacks Newt Gingrich as being too liberal for the GOP nomination by arguing that he shares many policy positions with President Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). All three supported radical cap and trade legislation that would destroy American jobs and drive up energy costs. All three supported giving illegal aliens some form of amnesty. All three sported the government health mandates which take away our freedom and is the core of ObamaCare. And all three of these politicians supported the Wall Street bailouts that was a slap in the face to the Tea Party, the narrator says.

It goes on to refer to the trio as cap and trade loving, bailout supporting, soft on immigration, big-government mandating politicians. The commercial is a sharp indictment of Gingrich, with whom Santorum has split more conservative voters in early primary contests.

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